The Saint and The Reaper
by Saint23
Summary: A large group is holed up inside the local WalMart. With their two brave leaders they intend to find a safe home and start a future in the undead world
1. Prolouge The Saint and the Reaper

Prolouge

Kyle woke up, and prayed it was a dream. The staff room couch was about 10 years too old to support human occupants but it was the only thing resembling a bed they had. He unplugged his iPod from the wall and ran through his library, creating a play list for the wee hours of morning. It was his turn for night watch. He figured the whole idea absurd. All there were were hundreds of zombies, nothing spectacular to watch, all he did was fight sleep, shoot coffee mugs he flung using the clay pigeon shooter he found in layaway, and listen to heavy metal. He prayed not because it was night watch, but simply because of the entire circumstance.

Zombies or something similar to them had overrun the town a week ago. Mello said it must have been biblical, end times and whatnot, but Kyle wasn't sure he believed in any of that God stuff. It had always just been fairy tales mommy told you to get you to behave as a kid, up until everything here had happened, now he just wasn't sure anymore. He made his way to the roof, the 20 or 30 shell-shocked refugees milled about around Wal-Mart, performing upkeep tasks, checking entrances, all eerily silent.

No one spoke unnecessarily anymore, all business. Many of the residents of their makeshift fortress had broken down and were still coming to grips with their emotions, others simply had nothing to say, they were past emotional shell-shock and either in denial or emotionally dead. One resident, Mickey, who was 16 had become a mute as a way of coping; he couldn't talk if he tried now.

He passed Mello on the way out. At 18, Mello was one of the older boys in the compound; he was also one of the smartest and the leader of over half the people, Him and Reaper. Reaper wasn't his real name, it had been given to him by the residents, and nobody knew his real name, except Mello, who seemed fonder of this nickname than the original. Mello also had a nickname, many of the residents referred to him as Saint. He was a devout Christian and often talked openly of his beliefs to the residents. Some disliked his openness and sometimes overbearing religious aura, but even if they had the power to do anything about it, they knew they couldn't, Mello, as dark and brooding as he was, was vital to the operation of this base; he was a genius when it came to zombies. He seemed to be able to find every hole and plug it before it became a problem.

Zombies, the term still sounded strange in Kyle's mind as he walked up the rear stairs to the roof. A lawn chair lay where he left it, the other guards preferred to walk the roof and look on all sides so no one else ever used his chair. He sat down at the Guard tent and looked through the jimmy-rigged camera monitors and saw nothing out of the usual. He picked up his copy of Red Dragon by Thomas Harris and dove into the adventures of Hannibal Lector and the detective Graham once again.

The moan's faded into the haze of his mind and soon there was nothing but the book.


	2. 1 Mello's schemes

Chapter 1

Mello stomped through the hallways of the stock rooms in back; he double checked a huge truck door and then lifted it up. _Perfect_. The truck had been left backed up closely enough to the door so that they could safely load people into the trailer without even seeing so much as a single zombie, should the front barricades decide not to work for some reason. They should though, he had though of them.

Through an excruciatingly complex system of ropes, pulleys, cables, and cranes they had successfully lifted two semi trailers in through a large hole they had cut in the roof with 5 chainsaws and more determination than a Spartan could shake a stick at, or more appropriate to the metaphor, wave a sword. The trailers had been filled with junk and placed in front of the two sets of double doors. Then they were tethered with all the bungee cords that weren't being used for something else.

Mello was using it as a temporary solution; he hoped to eventually weld the trailers in place to the walls. He wandered the back halls and stock rooms for a little longer. He prayed quietly to himself as he walked among the children's toys and house wares that would never be used.

The staff room was poorly lit as ever, across a large table was spread a beautiful aerial collage of the Ridgemont area, and its sister city Rockford. Thankfully Google Earth's servers hadn't gone down until a few days after the outbreak became nationwide, giving Reaper time to hijack images of the area from NASA satellites and print them off into a beautiful backlit and glass covered collage. Small flags (taken from a plastic army men kit) dotted several houses across the city, they were radio outposts where two or three of the braver members of the group watched for abnormalities and especially large groups of zombies. He took a little red army man and placed it in the field behind Wal-Mart. This meant to the rest of the group that he was outside the building and that was his intended destination.

He often liked to take late night walks in the cornfields behind the compound, as dangerous as they may be. It gave him quiet time to think and pray to the powers that be. As he strolled through the fallen cornstalks he never knew the madness they were about to be plunged into.


	3. 2jiggerypokery

Chapter 2

A shockwave tore through the stale dry night air knocking Mello to his knees. He rested there for a second, disoriented, before realizing all the things that could have just happened. As he spun a million and one possibilities for catastrophe ran through his mind. Think black oily smoke rose from the Wal-Mart. He sprinted instinctually for the back fire escape and whispered ten-thousand prayers to himself as he ascended the rusty metal ladder.

They weren't so much a prayer in the traditional "O' Father who art in heaven hallowed by thy name" prayer. It was a simple "Oh God" repeated over and over, like a mantra or a lesson from a schoolbook you would never use in real life but had to know because they told you so and that was why. Mello, who was always self analyzing himself laughed as a thought similar to the schoolbook circle logic crossed the threshold of his mind. Paradoxes had amused him since he was a child, but nothing was more amusing than people who thought they knew everything. That was what got us kicked out of paradise and here 10,000ish years later, nothing has changed. The roof seemed stable enough. Except of course, collapsed front quarter of the building, oh and the huge fires engulfing front of the compound. His mind flashed first to the escape route, and then to the survivors. He decided that in times like these it was appropriate to say "screw logic and common sense" and usher in a braver "ride in on the white horse with the really big kick-a sword and save the day just because you are that manly" mindset. He grabbed some rope laying nearby and tying it around his belt (which was purely aesthetic, since he preferred tight leather pants for his leg wear and frankly, pulled it off better than most). He got a running start jumped through one of the skylights feet first. He fell, caught, and dangled.

The mindset of logic came rushing back to him. He had forgot to check the rope length before he tied it to the support, and here he was dangling from a rope with nothing to do but dangle roughly 15 feet from the ground. He reached for his gun but found it so tightly wedged by the belt holding him up that he couldn't retrieve it without fear of losing his balance. So he went for his stiletto hidden beneath his buckle. His hand explored the bottom of the buckle and realized that the knife had fallen from his belt when rope had caught and snapped the buckle up. He remembered hearing the clunk as it hit the floor and had stored the sensory information out of habit. He counted to ten as the belt creaked and groaned under his sinuous frame. He thought through all of his possible options and figured the best plan was to climb partway up, cut 2 of the four, make a pulley and use his buckle as a repel to get down to about 5 feet and then just untie the knot and let the rope break. He started to climb up the rope, trying to keep weight off his belt. The inferno from the front of the store was growing closer to his location, somewhere near the paint department. About a third of the way up he realized that his grip was slipping, and try as he might, he couldn't hold on. His grip slipped and he fell, the rope caught, the belt snapped and Mello crashed onto the shelves below and fell onto the floor followed by about 50 gallons of paint in every color of the rainbow. After a few minutes, smoke reached his half conscious nose. And he sat bolt upright. He examined himself covered in white and red and blue and green and purple and every mixture of the five all over his clothing. Furious, he stood and looked up to his belt buckle, which still dangled from the rope. He drew his M1869 Schofield Pistol with its shiny nickel finish, sighted one of the florescent lights jimmy-rigged to the skylight frame with some jiggery-pokery of his own design.

His marksmen classes at the local gun club had paid off extensively, he landed a perfect shot on the support, the light's weight pulled the entire frame down. And it crashed loudly to the ground. He checked the revolver, it had three shots left, he would have to remember to reload it when he got the chance. He picked up his belt buckle, shoved it in his coat pocket and stormed off towards the back to lick his wounds and try to salvage his clothing.


	4. 3 the escape

Chapter 3

Mello ran from the bathroom, still wiping the white wet paint from his suede jacket and leather pants. He was furious. The compound was deserted or so it seemed, he rushed through the back storerooms and towards the loading dock, praying that the trailer hadn't been driven off without him. He sprinted around the last corner and froze. 20 or 30 zombies were encroaching upon 6 survivors backed up against the door, handguns drawn, firing at the zombies, killing one every few seconds or so. After a few seconds Mello's instincts to help kicked in, he sprinted towards the group, his eyes quickly finding the thinnest collection of zombies and football tackled one into the rest, rolling on top of them and coming up next to his fellow survivors. He couldn't tell weather they looked shocked or relieved and to be frank, he didn't care. He drew his magnum and pulled the trigger after sighting up the nearest zombie. A soft click, the sound inspired more hopelessness in Mello than seeing 10 million of this ungodly horde in one place would have. He spun around and looked at the small stash of ammo and weapons lying by the door of the truck, he ran for it bent down and inspected the weaponry. Not much of use, several Glock handguns and a broken hunting rifle. He looked around hopelessly, more for a melee weapon than anything else. He spied a shotgun leaning against the far side of the door, a box of shells resting next to the stock. He ran to it, picked it up, loaded it and tested the weight. It was perfect, a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. A scream ripped through the constant groan of the zombies. And one of the men toppled 3 zombies on top of him, blood gushing from his thrashed neck. A zombie bit deeper into his neck, and when he reared up the man fell silent, His vocal cords torn. The man would die in silent agony. Mello shook it off and fired three rounds at the man and his assailants. The three zombies writhed and ceased moving, except one which continued to twitch in the left arm. The 5 other men formed back around Mello who fired 2 more rounds into the oncoming crowd. They slowed, one fell backwards but eventually even it got up. Pushed back against the wall, Mello turned to one of the survivors, Brad, and yelled over the constant groan "Are the rest of them in the truck?"

"The rest of who?" brad replied.

"The survivors of course!" Mello shouted again, firing a shot into the crowd and reloading."  
"We are the survivors. And 2 girls in the truck" Brad said, performing the catholic seal on his chest and looking solemnly at the ground.

"Get the doors open!" Mello shouted. "We have to get out of here."  
Brad threw open the door and they all quickly closed it behind them, barely escaping the zombies. Mello threw the shotgun's strap over his shoulder and climbed for the door on the roof of the trailer. "Brad, come with me. You're gonna ride shotgun." He said throwing the 12 gauge to the tall dark skinned Mexican and laughing at his pun since no one else was. He scaled the crates and got up through the door, Brad closely following. They quickly entered the semi's cab and hotwired it. Mello floored the gas and drove them towards the highway the Wal-Mart had been built on. Any zombies that blocked the path were quickly dispatched of by the huge semi-truck. Brad's arm shot out, pointing at the roof. A lone man stood there, a beautiful scoped rifle in his hand, and highly reflective sunglasses over his eyes, it was Reaper. He sprinted to keep up with them as they drove along the side of the building. "What's he doing? He knows we couldn't stop for him if we wanted to." Brad questioned, but all Mello did was smile. Brad watched in amazement as Reaper removed his shirt, and pulled a makeshift harpoon gun from his back, he fired it into the back of the truck cab. He threw it through a skylight and made sure it stuck as he ran past it; he grabbed his shirt by one end and jumped from the corner of the roof, making sure that the shirt landed on both sides of the rope. Used his makeshift zip-line to slide towards the truck, landing behind the cab right as the rope snapped and the truck sped off.

Brad listened in awe as the kid, no older than 17 made his way along the side of the moving semi and through brads door, Shirt in tatters in his hand. "Hello Reaper, glad to have you joins us." Mello said calmly.  
"Yeah I'm glad I could too, that was a close one huh, whoa was that fun though." Reaper replied with a smile and a tad too much enthusiasm for such a near death experience.  
"Why didn't you help us in the storerooms in back? Where were you?" Brad questioned Reaper after a minute.

"Keeping the some of the rest from getting in." he nodded towards the beautiful rifle on the dash. "That's my baby; she's a .50 cal custom Snyder. It was my dad's pride and joy." He glanced towards the floor as he said the last part, and a hint of sadness may have filled his eyes, Brad wasn't sure.

"So what the heck happened back there guys?" Mello finally decided to interject.

"It's a long story" both said in complete unison

"It's a long drive" was the only reply. 


	5. 4 Firepower

"It all started when I saw a car off in the distance. I was just sitting there eyeing some stuff with my scope and suddenly I spied the headlights, they reached the parking lot pretty quickly and before we knew it she was atop the car, surrounded by zombies, screaming for a rope. Wasn't till she got up on the roof with us that we really got a good look at her. She was about as tall as Brad there, Right Brad?" Reaper paused and waited for Brad to nod, and then continued on with his description. "She was right pretty to I'd reckon, I don't know, something I didn't like about her, something smelled fishy. So I asked her how she'd stayed alive this long, n' she wouldn't answer me! She just kept on saying that it was luck and driving skill. That's when THEY showed up." He said, putting a lot of extra emphasis on 'they'.

"They?" Mello said, taking his eyes off the highway momentarily while he shot a quizzical look at Reaper.

"Yeah, see we took her inside and got her cleaned up all right and proper like, and then we heard this loud noise from the roof so I took out my baby and headed to the roof, but by then it was too late to do anything." Reaper said, his natural and normally well hidden slight southern drawl growing more evident under the stress and recollection of the events leading up to his near death zip line. "Too late see, because there was this helicopter, two of them actually, they were all like dropping soldiers down on ropes, at least I think that's what they were…they all had body armor and gas mask's. All were armed to the teeth, with medium ranged assault rifles, I could have probably taken…" he paused "…oh I'd say about 13 of them."

"I thought you said they were armed to the teeth Reaper." Mello Replied, making sure to keep his eyes on the road swerving now and then to avoid a pothole or zombie. Reaper replied with a long list of technical specs for every weapon the soldiers had on them in comparison with his sniping abilities, his Lugar/carbine's clip and the weather/wind/temp. Mello understood about 10 seconds worth of this information, so he just smiled and nodded and acted like he understood anything besides Reaper knew what he was talking about.

Brad, feeling left out of the technical sounding conversation about who was shooting what at whom and why, decided to interject "Reaper, what exactly is in that guitar case looking thing you brought with you?"

Reaper perked up and turned to Mello. "its getting late anyway, lets find a place to sleep. Over there, rest stop" he said, pointing out a turn off from the highway. Brad and Reaper checked the premises once they stopped. Brad was still perplexed though, because even though he had this large guitar looking case on his back, he still carried no visible handgun or anything to fight a zombie with. After they were done, they sat on one of the benches, listening to the crickets chirp, A small sign of normalcy. The sound relaxed them and they tried comically to make small talk, failing horribly to find anything in common at all.

After some time, Brad worked up the courage to ask Reaper what he was carrying. A smile lit up reapers face as he slung the bag off his back set it gently on the ground. He unzipped the bag and revealed what looked like a few plastic bottles with several clear fluids in them and a sheet, camouflage and excessively clean. He pulled out the mat and set it on the pavement, and dusting off some nonexistent dirt on it. He removed the least filled bottle and set it painstakingly in the upper corner of the mat. With speed that was mind boggling considering his precision he unzipped the case revealing a beautiful black rifle, one of the biggest, no, the biggest, brad had ever seen. He picked it up gently and placed it on the mat, returned to the bag, and out of the outer pouch took a rag and a screwdriver. He then proceeded to completely disassemble the entire rifle, clean and oil (which is what was in the bottle) and then reassemble the rifle at unheard of speeds. He returned to the outer pouch of the case and removed a tan box, plastic and sturdy, it looked rather heavy. The case reminded Brad of the kind that drill bits were stored in, this case though of course was not for drill bits, and as he proceeded to pull a round longer than brad's hand from the box and show it to him, brad realized that it was the specialized ammo box.

"my baby, a custom model Truvelo .50 caliber sniper rifle, used most commonly by the South African military. My father was ex-marines and had access to a large number of weapons the public couldn't get. This is one of them, the one I chose to train with. It's the only one I'll ever see, that's why I treat it so well, and inspect every round I put in it." He explained to brad as he packed it all up again even faster than he took it out. "my short range weapon is this he said after his rifle case was back over his shoulder and reached his hand to where the small of his back was and into a secret pouch in the gun case. Pulling out what looked like a pistol with a rifle barrel.

"I see…and what exactly is it?" Brad couldn't help feeling stupid as he asked

"It's a German Luger Parabellum. Only I replaced the normal barrel with the carbine barrel and I have a stock for it in that pouch if I need accuracy."

"Whoah, that's pretty awesome dude, glad someone is prepared, and with all that firepower too." Brad said and went back to listening to crickets and staring at the man made lake behind the rest stop, thinking hard on everything going on.

"yeah, I just have a nasty feeling were gonna need more than just one sniper rifle though" Brad heard Reaper mutter under his breath as he walked back towards the truck.

And Brad knew he was right….


End file.
